Josh writes:I would like to have a better idea of the kind of skeptic a philosopher who ‘does ethics’ is. But can a moral philosopher afford to be a skeptic? – To be a skeptic is to challenge received certainty—physical reality, wakefulness, other minds, one’s own ability to think for oneself. In general, this leads to a challenge to one’s own mindfulness. Certainties like this are the skeletons of the mind. Without them, the mind collapses—collapses into philosophy. But what does the moral thinker have to be certain about? – The moral law? The existence of a benevolent God? One would almost like to say: we can only be certain of our fallen, instinctively egoistic, nature. That’s certainty in the absence of ethics. – I don’t know. That’s a possible attitude.In ethics, I want to say, there are no certainties. There are only uncertainties. In ethics the freaks are those who are certain, not skeptic. It takes a saint to be certain in ethics (I'm not sure even a Socrates would do). In ethics anyone can be a skeptic.